Karl Lagerfeld, the most recognised fashion designer in the world, is not a man used to being ignored. His tenure at Chanel has seen both the fortunes of the brand and the personal reputation of the designer maintain a steady upward trajectory that, even after almost three decades, shows no sign of tailing off.

In recent years, which saw the fortunes of Yves Saint Laurent gently slide and those of Dior take an unceremonious tumble, that trajectory put clear blue water between Chanel and the other big Avenue Montaigne names. The Chanel catwalk show became the central spectacle around which rest of the Paris fashion week circus revolved.

This week all that changed. With the arrival of new designers at Yves Saint Laurent and Christian Dior promising to breathe new air into those houses, and the industry transfixed by the duel – a contest most reviews are calling for Dior – every other label in town has been deprived of the oxygen of publicity. This being fashion, one might have assumed that the stage was set for Lagerfeld to throw an almighty tantrum.

But no. The oldest and wisest player at the table knows full well that to show weakness in this way would be fatal. The fashion pack can smell fear, and they are ruthless. Instead, Lagerfeld has this week struck a pose of the utmost serenity and magnaminity. He enthused to Womenswear Daily about the "exciting season" and airily described Hedi Slimane and Raf Simons, his rivals for the spotlight, as "people I like a lot, with a lot of talent".

Visitors to the Chanel studio in the Rue Cambon this week were greeted with a poster, drawn by Lagerfeld, announcing "no smoking here" and depicting a model in a tuxedo – le smoking, in Yves Saint Laurent parlance, and an icon of that house – crossed out behind a thick red line. Lagerfeld explained that he would not be including tuxedos in his collection, because "Hedi Slimane does it really well".

With all the elegance one expects of Chanel, Lagerfeld thus gently reminded the industry that Chanel, with so many instantly recognisable creations of its own, can well afford to be gracious.

In keeping with this tone the Chanel catwalk show, staged in the Grand Palais, was a lighthearted affair, full of visual humour. References to the illustrious history of the house abounded, offered in the guise of jokes: a photograph on each seat showed a pair of the black sunglasses Coco Chanel always wore, a tiny figure of Coco in pearls perched on the rim like a wedding cake topper.

On the catwalk enormous pearls were worn as bracelets and necklaces in outsize, casual tangles, and nestled as hair bobbles in the models' deliberately messy ponytails. The famous quilted 2.55 handbag was endlessly restyled: as a half moon between two enormous hula hoops, twisted into surrealist perspective with an asymmetric parallelogram shape, reconfigured in the colours of a Rubik's cube, and with the plump quilting replaced by an open wire mesh.

The double-C logo appeared on the front of a swimsuit, the slim oval formed where the letters intersect cut out to show a sliver of bare flesh. The two-tone camel-and-black pumps, long favoured by ladies who lunch, were remade, the traditional camel leather replaced by transparent perspex.

If anyone doubted Lagerfeld was the master of the revels, the joking extended to his own catwalk outfit: he was branded, footballer-style, with that most Chanel of numbers, the 5.

Most intriguing of all were the 13 full-sized wind turbines Chanel installed along the catwalk. The designer's explanation was whimsical in the extreme: "I started sketching in Central Park, and it was so hot that I wanted fresh air," he offered breezily to reporters after the show.

It can not have escaped the attention of Lagerfeld, master of visual symbolism that he is, that wind turbines represent a change to the landscape, to which conservative types are resistant. By putting these symbols of a changing world on to its very own catwalk, Chanel made it very clear it has nothing to be scared of.